Looking for Te hometown in Fujian

[chengkuo]

I am hoping to correspond to any Te family member from Fujian. I want to look for my roots. Thank you.

[philiptancl]

Hi Chengkuo,

Is the Chinese character for your surname Te written as 鄭 in traditional Chinese or 郑 in simplified Chinese? Which county in Fujian did your ancestors originated from so that you can narrow down your search? Do you also know the ancestral village in that county?

[chengkuo]

The Chinese character is correct but that's all I know. For 6 generations, nobody in our family knew about our hometown or county in Fujian. It was because in the 1850s, the Philippines was still under Spanish control and the Chinese inhabitants were required to adopt Spanish names to avoid being expelled especially in the province of Negros where there was a dominant Spanish community. We totally lost contact with our Chinese roots. Some in our clan are trying to re-learn the language because we also lost it, just fragments of phrases in Fujianhua.

[chengkuo]

The last information I got is that my ancestor with Filipino name Vicente Te (Te changed to Teves during the Spanish colonial time in the Philippines) came from Xiamen, but which particular county in Xiamen, that I no longer have any idea. He came to the Philippines in the 1850s and was engaged in sugar business in the Central Philippines. He was the one who started the muscovado sugar industry in the Philippines based on information from other sugar businessmen.

[philiptancl]

Hi Chengkuo,

If the descendents of your first ancestor Vicente Te of 鄭/郑 surname already numbered 6 generations since he settled in Philippines from a place somewhere near Xiamen, and if each his subsequent generations had lost track and contact with the ancestral village in China, your better bet in finding your roots is to check out if the Vicent Te ancestral village name in Fujian was written on his gravestone. If it is and if Vicente name is Chinese was also written thereon, then you stand a better chance to find your roots in Fujian. I have yet to come across any family records (jiapu/zupu) for someone from Philippines who are of Chinese descend.

[hays]

Hi Philiptanci,
Don't you think that it is impossible to trace ancestor village if he only have nick name and not even the real name ?
Even I, who has the real chinese name of my ancestor AND the name of the village is still having difficult to trace

Steve

[laohuaqiao]

Hays,
Can you give us an update of your search? The last post you made was in 2006. There is a great deal more tools available online now than 2006. Give us the latest info you have if you still need help.

[hays]

Hi laohuaqiao,
Actually something funny happened during my search.
I was searching the ancestor village of my mother Zheng family.
At first I didn't find the gravetomb of a male descendants as our family graveyard was exavacated some years before I started to get interested in searching.
I only had from the wife which was written in Chinese, and it was from 1886.
It was stated that the name of the village is Jinyang. No prefecture, no other area.
But since it was from the wife, I was not 100% sure it was the one from the Zheng, although some older generation from the local temple, it should be from the husband (the Zheng) instead from herself (the Chen).

But then I found out that my first ancestor in Indonesia had a brother lived somewhere else and his descendant too had a written family tree (in Indonesian language). So I asked if I can get the family tree.
There I found that the village was named MEY-TO, Prefecture THIO-TOA, Area TJIANG-TJIOE, province HOKKIAN.
All in Dutch spelling hokkians dialect, so I translated Thio-toa to Changtai, Tjiang-tjioe to Zhangzhou and Hokkian is of course Fujian.
I asked several of my friend, even who lives in Xiamen for the village Mey-To, in neighbourhood of Changtai, no one knows.

In the mean time I found a distance cousin's grave of my great grandfather who moved to other city, and it was a beautiful grave from 1934, and also still written in Chinese.
I read there the confirmation that the village was indeed Jinyang.
I asked again to my friend about village Jinyang, and this time, I said not only to look in the Changtai area, but all South Fujian.
The reason was I started to questioning if indeed the other family was the real brother of my ancestor, as the information was only one sided (theirs, and not confirmed by our side).
My friend found the village Jinyang, and it is in the area of Dehua, all the way up north from Yongchun.
During my visit to Xiamen 3 years ago, I visited the place, but I didn't have the feeling that that was the village I looked for.
I visited also some other ancestral village like the Yang in Xia-yang, the Qiu in Xin-an and other, all the village had the main family which were the family I searched. Like the Yang in Xia-yang, they are majority surname there. So it was also the Qiu in Xin-an.
But in Jin-yang, there was no Zheng lives there, and the majority there were the Chen.
Also my Zheng-family did business in shipping line. Though it was not a guarantee, but logical thinking, I thought the village should be next to the water, or the river. But this Jin-yang was at the foot of a mountain. Not a place for people who were going to do business in shipping line.

After 2 years not finding anything new, I was messaged by a relative from the other family (the one from the brother of my ancestor) that somehow he saw my question about Mey-to in the internet and he needed to explain to me.
He said that it was a mistype, it should be Mey-Yo, and that means "DON'T KNOW". It means that the writer didn't know exactly the village name, and therefore he wrote as Mey-yo.
Anyway, I came back to my friend in Xiamen again to ask for the village Jinyang near Changtai, and somehow this time, she (my friend in Xiamen) found out the village, it was from Changtai with the highway 503 to southeast, just over the bridge.
She made a call to the village chief, and confirmed that there are majority Zheng village in the past and te ancestral ashes house is still there.
So, next time I visit Xiamen, and hopefully next September, I definitely will visit the village. Just curious if I can trace my ancestor's name in the clan book there.

So, that was then my search till now.
Steve

[Doug 周]

Jan 3, 2014 2:37:01 GMT -5 hays said:

...He said that it was a mistype, it should be Mey-Yo, and that means "DON'T KNOW". It means that the writer didn't know exactly the village name, and therefore he wrote as Mey-yo....

Here is a good example of the beginning Chinese family historian's conundrum of phonetic spelling into their host language. The multiple regional dialects, pronunciations, slang's, and illiteracy make tracing our ancestors seem hard.

In reality, every immigrant group has their particular nuances. This forum aims to teach the family historian where and how to look for their information.

Steve, thank you for sharing so others can learn.

[laohuaqiao]

Hays/Steve,
Thank you for your update. That is a funny story. I'm glad that your persistence has paid off, I think the village you have found is very promising. Adding to what Doug said, having the surname-village name pair in Chinese is extremely helpful, very likely to lead to successful search.

The other comment I want to make is traditionally the village name on a woman's tombstone is always the husband's village. In Chinese culture, the belief is a woman is destined to be in the husband's household. Elderly women in my village when they want to refer the "time when they were married" they would always say the "time when they came home". The verb "to marry" for a woman is jia 嫁, made up of characters for female 女 and home/family 家； the verb to marry" for a man is qu 娶, made up of characters for to take 取 and female 女.

[hays]

Hi laohuaqiao,
Yes I understand also about the village name of the wife's tomb, as the older man from the temple said to me a woman went to a gate when she got married, and that was the gate from the husband's home.
It was a "Men" character like from Xia-Men.
Of course I wasn't sure at that time, but now I fully understand what he said.


Regards,
Steve

[matutina]

Hi! I'm also trying to locate my grandfather's and his family in Xiamen. I was trying to locate their whereabouts, if they were still alive. My grandfather's name is Te Keng Lim from Lamua, Amoy but that's all I know. He used to send us letter but later learned that he died. I just want to know if there's a grave of my grandfather.

[monicatan]

My grandmother was a Zheng although her records in the Philippines spell her surname as "Tee". All entries in the birth documents of their children born in the Philippines only refer to their hometown as Amoy/Xiamen, which is a pretty big area (and have been subject to several boundary changes). I have managed to translate their names in Hokkien/Minnan into Mandarin and into characters. I also have the Hokkien/Minnan name of their 2nd son (my second uncle), which I will try to translate into Mandarin and into characters. Aside from the names, all I have are their birthdates. Their gravestones do not contain any hometown information and are already in English, not even in their Chinese names. My surviving aunts do not remember much and/or couldn't be bothered.  They also don't know Mandarin, only Hokkien/Minnan. I have tried to contact My China Roots and they said the minimium information I should give are their names in Chinese characters and dates of birth. I'm unsure if I can afford their fees at this point. I may have to save for it for 2-3 years. 

I only have 1 photo of my grandparents, which should be when they were in their 30s. They left China around 1930, since my second uncle was born there in 1929 while my father (born 1931) was their first child born in the Philippines. I plan to visit China next year. Can someone help or connect me with someone who can be instrumental in pinpointing the ancestral village? I would very much like to pay respect to any ancestral tombs and/or ancestral halls. I can allocate some funds for the search. 

Thank you in advance.

[philiptancl]

Jul 30, 2018 3:24:41 GMT -5 monicatan said:

My grandmother was a Zheng although her records in the Philippines spell her surname as "Tee". All entries in the birth documents of their children born in the Philippines only refer to their hometown as Amoy/Xiamen, which is a pretty big area (and have been subject to several boundary changes). I have managed to translate their names in Hokkien/Minnan into Mandarin and into characters. I also have the Hokkien/Minnan name of their 2nd son (my second uncle), which I will try to translate into Mandarin and into characters. Aside from the names, all I have are their birthdates. Their gravestones do not contain any hometown information and are already in English, not even in their Chinese names. My surviving aunts do not remember much and/or couldn't be bothered.  They also don't know Mandarin, only Hokkien/Minnan. I have tried to contact My China Roots and they said the minimium information I should give are their names in Chinese characters and dates of birth. I'm unsure if I can afford their fees at this point. I may have to save for it for 2-3 years. 

I only have 1 photo of my grandparents, which should be when they were in their 30s. They left China around 1930, since my second uncle was born there in 1929 while my father (born 1931) was their first child born in the Philippines. I plan to visit China next year. Can someone help or connect me with someone who can be instrumental in pinpointing the ancestral village? I would very much like to pay respect to any ancestral tombs and/or ancestral halls. I can allocate some funds for the search. 

Hi Monicatan,

With what you have it would be waste of your money to engage My China Roots or anyone else to search for your ancestry.

Tee/The/Tay are Hokkien/Minnan transliteration of the surname Zheng (鄭). As this is your grandmother surname and even if you know her ancestral village and her name in Chinese characters, it is very unlikely you can find her ancestry, unless you are able to locate the name(s) of her male relatives of her Tee clan. Chinese family genealogical records only carry the details for the male descendants as they would be carrying the surname (family name). Whilst the names of daughters may be mentioned in the family records and sometimes who they are married to, the names of their children would not be recorded. Their children would be recorded in the husband’s family records. Very often the names of daughters were not even mentioned.

As for your grandfather his surname is Tan/Chen (陳), there is a chance you may be able to find his should you eventually find his ancestral village in Fujian. Invariably people of Chinese descent from Philippines seeking advice in this Forum would say they come from Amoy/Xiamen. I suppose that must be the port where they first embarked when going to Philippines and not the place where their ancestral villages are located.

So the gravestones of those of your deceased ancestors in Philippines do not carry the names of the ancestral village. Do try searching for any old correspondences and documents that might still exist. Sometime ancestors may write down ancestral details (in Chinese) to pass on for future generations but very often descendants think they are worthless pieces of papers and would discard them. Therefore do search out any written papers or written records that your grandfather or other of your Tan relatives had left behind for his descendants. I have come across quite showing me such documents without realizing it contains details of their ancestral places in China and names of their ancestors.

Do talk to your Tan relatives (however distant) as they may know some of the information. If you or your ancestor relatives still have ancestral tablets/photos for veneration during anniversary of their deaths, there may be information written on them or genealogy information concealed within compartments in the ancestral tablets. When did ancestor or his ancestor first settle in overseas? Sometimes people from the same ancestral village in China would go to the same foreign place initially. I am of the third generation in Malaysia and I could count at least 10 other people (not necessary of the same surname) who first came to the same place in Malaysia where my grandfather had settled and where I was raised.

Philip Tan

[monicatan]

Dear Philip Tan,

My apologies for the late reply as I just remembered I posted two questions here. Thank you very much for the very detailed reply/feedback. It is very helpful.  

I am leaning now on Jimei in Xiamen as my grandfather's hometown since I recently remembered a conversation we had when I was 15. He said he taught there, in his hometown (my aunts said he was even a  principal but can't even remember the place). But Jimei is a district now (Tong'an where it used to belong to is also a district of Xiamen).  As for my grandmother, who I think was an only child,  it is likely Shijing town in Quanzhou. A distant cousin from Singapore sent me a scanned photo of my grandparents while visiting SG and somehow, her name and Shijing in traditional characters were written at the back. Shijing is a town. So the villages are still unknown. My distant cousin from SG said they are from Jimei and we are related via the Chen/Tan side. At least the areas for verification are narrowed down. 
 
I do remember having an ancestral altar at my grandparents' house.  Will ask my first aunt if she kept the things from there (the house was sold in the 1990s, and we have also sold many of its furnishings and decors) and hopefully, the photographs have inscriptions and are still available as well as any correspondence from China. My grandparents settled in Sariaya, Quezon at first then during the war years and for some time after, they moved farther in the same province, where land was very cheap so they (via their children) were able to acquire a sizeable landholdings.  The small town was called Aurora (now San Francisco).  They moved to Manila in the late 1950s/early 1960s. There are still some Tan relatives in that small town. As for grandmother's side, the few relatives here settled in Ozamis City in Mindanao. 

I have tried, with no success, to obtain the ancestral villages from those distant relatives (we're just few here in the Philippines) on both sides (Tan and Tee). And also great grandparents names.  I do remember that my father, when still alive, attended meetings of the Tan Association. I have even attended those with him as a child but can't remember where, just downtown. I think there are two Tan Clan Association here in Manila but I can visit both. I am unsure what sort of information I can get from there but it is worth a try as my near and distant relatives here are useless when it comes to these things.  My first cousin in the USA remembered her father as having a passport from Taiwan, not the Philippines, but it can't be found now.  I'll check if the Taiwanese government entertains requests for passport information 60 years ago and if the information in the document are useful.  

I agree that a good number of Chinese people in the Philippines just say/state "Amoy/Xiamen" as their hometown but are actually from another place from Fujian. A friend said they came from "Amoy" but she also said they come from the same village as the ancestor of President Corazon Cojuangco Aquino, so I told her it is not Xiamen but Zhangzhou. Another one said, when asked, "Xiamen of course, is there any other place?"   Two friends do not even know the possible town or city, just Fujian and that they are Hokkien. 

Still intend to visit China next year even if I don't have obtain any information.  I understand this will be a long-drawn project. 

Again, thank you for your very helpful feedback, sir. 

====
Monica